Board grants permit for gun range

Published: Friday, September 20, 2013 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, September 20, 2013 at 12:18 a.m.

Opponents of a proposed gun range groaned when Davidson County officials granted a permit allowing owners to move forward.

By a vote of 4-1, the Davidson County Board of Adjustment approved a special use permit for Lexington resident Brent Knight, who plans to open a 30-bay gun range in southern Davidson County.

The board granted the permit after hearing a total of about 10 hours of testimony during a two-part, quasi-judicial public hearing that concluded Thursday night. Quasi-judicial public hearings are used for special use permits involving gun ranges. The first part of the public hearing was held July 18.

The decision was opposite of the recommendation from the Davidson County Planning and Zoning Board, who unanimously voted that the request be denied.

The proposed range, to be located at a rurally-zoned property at 3950 Shiptontown Road in Denton, would be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the week and on weekends, have four shooting areas and would be used for turkey shoots, matches, tournaments and special events that could be held at night, according to information in Knight's application.

The range would be located in a heavily wooded area, and shooters would fire from Shiptontown Road into a 25-yard backdrop that would include ballistic sand and a topsoil-and-grass cover.

Knight's application also states that the area would be lighted and have covered shelters enclosed on three sides.

The board found that Knight's application met all of the standards required to obtain the special use permit, which include promoting health and wellbeing of the public, maintaining or enhancing contiguous property values, complying with all regulations and standards and falling in line with physical development plans in the county. Board member Kenny Meredith dissented in the vote to grant the permit, because he was unsure the condition to maintain property tax values had been met.

After a recommendation from board member Tim Temple, the board stipulated that a fence and appropriate signage must be placed around the property.

"We need to make sure they can't get accidentally shot or wander out on the range or whatever, during the time they are shooting," Temple said.

The board also stipulated the range could not be open on Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter, and there could be no more than two turkey shoots a month held at night.

Appraisers and acoustics experts on both sides of the issue made countering arguments for whether property values would suffer because of the development or that noise from the range would impact public health and well-being.

Neighbors who lived near the property told the board they were worried about how safety and noise would impact their lives and property values. They also voiced concerns about some of Knight's claims, including that he will recapture lead included in storm water runoff and that trees on surrounding properties would serve as a buffer between properties.

Mary Frank, 75, who lives in an adjoining property to where the proposed gun range would be located, said her home will be in the general direction of gunfire.

"It's not good on my life," said Frank, who has lived in her home for 57 years. "I've got high blood pressure, and that's not good for you."

Frank, who said she did let hunters use her property during hunting season, said she would constantly worry and change her habits and schedule with a year-round range.

At the first part of the public hearing in July, Knight said the range is needed to provide an increasing amount of concealed carry permit holders and other gun owners a safe place to shoot. A real estate appraiser and forensic engineer also both testified at the first meeting that the proposed range would maintain property values and would not create a disturbance to surrounding residents.

On Thursday, experts on the other side said just the opposite.

High Point-based appraiser Molly Chisholm presented an analysis that extremely comparable homes nearer and further away from existing firing ranges sold for and were valued at different prices. Studying homes in High Point and Waxhaw, Chisholm said even with negative adjustments, the homes farther away from firing ranges sold for higher amounts in the same month.

Chisholm's analysis also concluded that a different appraisal analysis, offered at the first hearing by the proponents, was flawed because it only studied properties close to firing ranges in Davidson County.

However, Knight's attorney, Bit Holton and board members challenged Chisholm's remarks, asking her why she did not study comparable homes in Davidson County.

Temple specifically questioned Chisholm's comparison of homes in Waxhaw, which were in a suburban neighborhood that he said was far different from the property in question in a "rural" area.

"How can you compare all these hundreds and hundreds of houses to this, which has one, two, three and four contiguous tracts?" Temple questioned. "How can this be a fair comparison to that?"

Chisholm said she thoughts she had a perfect case study in Waxhaw, and she had to go that far to find a comparable situation.

Dr. Richard Honeycutt, an acoustic expert, also gave a dense presentation about how sound impacts humans, concluding among other things that the proposed range would expose 57 residents to sound unacceptable sound levels, according to industry standards.

Holton, who objected to the simulation being entered as evidence, said the recording, which played for about one minute, was highly speculative and prejudicial.

Nash Dunn can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 227, or atnash.dunn@the-dispatch.com. Follow Nash on Twitter: @LexDispatchNash.

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